Posts Tagged ‘Geithner’

This is pretty much exactly what happened in the IRS scandal. Or in the Benghazi scandal. Etcetera.

Obama has lied to the American people about their health care. That is a documented fact. He has lied to the American people about their economy – as has now been revealed by his former Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner as a documented fact. And he has lied to the American people about their national security when he covered up what happened at Benghazi and then attempted to cover up his cover-up.

If you DON’Tbelieve the same first paragraph wouldn’t read, “The White House wanted Ambassador Susan Rice to lie on Sunday talk shows to downplay the part Benghazi played in demonstrating Obama’s broad failure of policy against terrorism,” you are a rabid ideologue. The evidence is so overwhelming it is beyond unreal. Obama’s White House is THE most viscerally dishonest, zombie ideological and rabidly partisan administration in the entire history of the republic.

The White House wanted Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner to lie on Sunday talk shows to downplay the part Social Security played in driving the deficit, it was revealed today.

Geithner writes in his memoir Stress Test, out today, that the White House communications director asked him to downplay the long term cost of Social Security spending to mollify the Democratic Party’s base.

‘I remember during one Roosevelt Room prep session before I appeared on the Sunday shows, I objected when Dan Pfeiffer wanted me to say Social Security didn’t contribute to the deficit. It wasn’t a main driver of our future deficits, but it did contribute,’ he says.

‘Pfeiffer said the line was a ‘dog whistle’ to the left, a phrase I had never heard before. He had to explain that the phrase was code to the Democratic base, signaling that we intended to protect Social Security.’

Geithner’s book release comes amidst allegations that the White House changed the Sunday show talking points of U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice’s after the September 11, 2012 attack in Benghazi, Libya for political reasons.

Days after the White House claims it knew what happened in Benghazi was ‘an act of terror,’ Rice wrongly blamed an anti-Muslim internet video for the deadly assault in a string of high-profile interviews on network news stations.

The White House has forcefully denied that it made anything other than minor changes to Rice’s talking points. Recently released e-mails between deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes and White House communications staff calls the veracity of the Obama administration’s claims into question.

The emails show that Rice was instructed to claim the attack was ‘spontaneously inspired ‘ and ‘to ​underscore that these protests are rooted in an Internet video, and not a broader failure or policy.’

Geithner’s anecdote about White House communications staff trying pressure him into misleading Americans about the country’s ability to meet its future financial obligations once again casts a shadow on the Obama administration’s willingness to tell the truth when the truth is politically unappealing.

He writes that Pfeiffer, who is now Obama’s senior communications adviser, often let party politics come into play when discussing how the administration should respond to fiscal issues.

During a discussion on spending cuts, Geithner says that Pfieffer argued that ‘we couldn’t afford to alienate our base and split a weakened Democratic Party in pursuit of an imaginary compromise with Republicans who didn’t want to compromise.’

Early reviews of Geithner’s book indicate that the former Treasury Secretary, who now works at a private equity firm, does not appear to have an axe to grind with Obama, giving greater weight to his recollections.

Geithner mostly uses the memoir to provide context for actions he took as Treasury Secretary from 2009 to 2013 to get the nation back on track after the financial crisis of 2008.

The only other seemingly negative remark Geithner makes about the White House is about President Obama, whom he says, ‘Sometimes I thought he wore his frustration too openly.’

‘He harbored the overly optimistic belief that since his motives and values were good, since his team was thoughtful and well-intentioned, we deserved to be perceived that way,’ Geithner says in the book, according to a review in the New York Times.

Hmmm, something about that. What does Geithner say?

‘I remember during one Roosevelt Room prep session before I appeared on the Sunday shows…

Three days before the 1994 State of the Union Address, President Bill Clinton’s advisers fretted about including a line promising that participants in the still-viable Hillarycare insurance overhaul would be allowed to keep their favored doctors and health care plans, a concern that would come back years later when President Barack Obama promised the same thing.

The line, which made it into the final speech in a slightly different form – Clinton told Americans they would have ‘the freedom to choose a plan and the right to choose your own doctor’ – was the subject of controversy because his aides knew it was untrue.

‘We have a line on p. 10 that says “You’ll pick the health plan and the doctor of your choice,”‘ an internal memo read.

‘I know that it’s just what people want to hear. But can we get away with it?’ he asked. ‘I am very worried about getting skewered for over-promising here on something we know full well we won’t deliver.’

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The Clintons’ first term in the White House was marred by the failure of ‘Hillarycare,’ an earlier proposed version of what would later become law as the Affordable Care Act

‘Over-promising': A 1994 memo released Friday shows a Clinton aide encouraging the president to drop from his State of the Union address a line promising Americans they could keep their health care plans and their doctors

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In his 1994 State of the Union address, Bill Clinton promised Americans ‘the freedom to choose a plan and the right to choose your own doctor’ — 13 years before Barack Obama made nearly identical pledges

The memo was part of more than 4,000 pages of documents released by the Bill Clinton Presdiential Library, and offers new insights into the development – and ‘sale’ to Congress – of the ill-fated Hillarycare program that represented a major public embarrassment for then-first lady Hillary Clinton.

‘Isn’t the whole thrust of our health plan to steer people toward cheaper, HMO-style providers?’ wrote the memo’s author, identified only as Todd.

‘It’s one thing to say we’ll preserve your option to pick the doctor of your choice (recognizing that this will cost more), it’s quite another to appear to promise the nation that everyone will get to pick the doctor of his or her choice,’ he added. ‘And that’s exactly what this line does.’

We are seeing breathtaking dishonesty all across the board. Barack Obama is a rabid cancer upon America.

And his Democrat Party has circled their wagons and are doing everything they possibly can to prevent so much as QUESTIONS being asked about it.

And the ONLY reason they think they can get away with it is because the mainstream media are more propagandist today – and frankly more sophisticated about the art and science of propaganda – than Joseph Goebbels’ Ministry of Propaganda or Stalin’s TASS were sixty years ago.

We live in an age of deception just before the coming of the Antichrist who was prophesied in Scripture to come to a worshiping world in the very last days. And we are watching with our eyes a Democrat Party that has officially announced that they are ready to take the Mark of the Beast.

If you believe Obama didn’t instruct Susan Rice to lie through his political thugs on those five Sunday Talk shows where she told outright lies that everyone KNOWS were outright lies, and if you don’t think the GOP should investigate something that frankly should lead to Obama being IMPEACHED for official corruption as he covered up the truth to maintain a lie that he had succeeded in “decimating” al Qaeda when that narrative was proven false by Benghazi – and then covered up his cover up by withholding the proof that the White House substituted its “Youtube video” talking points for “planned terrorist attack by an al Qaeda-affiliated terrorist organization”, you have already demonstrated that you will surely believe the Antichrist’s lies and take his mark. And burn in hell for it.

“He didn’t offer much new or take responsibility for the exploding debt. … The White House doesn’t seem to want to admit it’s been adding to that debt handily.”

Turbo Tax Timothy Geithner (that’s the guy who wasn’t smart enough or honest enough to pay his own taxes before taking a job making him responsible for everyone else paying their taxes) was asked if the White House accepted any responsibility for this disaster. And nope (see also here for video):

Harwood: Do you feel that you or the administration’s policies are in any way responsible for this downgrade?

GEITHNER: Absolutely not. You’ve seen the president work incredibly hard and make really amazing progress trying to heal the damage caused by this terrible crisis. And you saw him work his heart out to try and bring both parties together to reach agreement on a long-term fiscal deal. Made some progress, didn’t solve it all, but a very good down payment.

Democrats are crawling out to any mainstream media venue that allows cockroaches (that’s pretty much any mainstream media venue, mind you) and calls the Tea Party “terrorists.” But the vote on the debt ceiling extension combined with the fact that Democrats never bothered to offer any plan of their own on top of the fact that they still haven’t come up with an F-ING BUDGET after 832 days really ought to point out that when they point a finger at us and call us “terrorists” three fingers are pointing back at themselves.

Democrats would have to quadruple in maturity to even qualify as “infantile.”

Sadly, Bush is the only president who is responsible for anything these days. Did I mention we’re well into the third year of the failed Obama presidency?

Barack Obama says the U.S. always is and always has been a triple-A country, despite its rating agency downgrade.

He said also the U.S. didn’t need a rating agency to tell it that it’s political system was having trouble functioning.

Speaking at the White House on the Standard & Poor’s downgrade, Obama renewed a plea to Congress to take action in September of help create jobs and cushion Americans from a still weak economy.

Obama said financial markets around the world “still believe our credit is triple-A. I and the world’s investor’s agree.”

Well, if “agree” means “panic-selling that puts us into bear-market territory” with a 635 point smackdown that constitutes the sixth largest loss on the Dow in history, then Obama ISN’T completely out-of-touch with reality.

Obama offered no solutions whatsoever. That after not bothering to speak at ALL for the entire weekened after the downgrade was announced on Friday, and apparently after showing up fifty minutes late to his own pony show. The markets were down when Obama started speaking, and after he reasurred the world the markets pretty much said, “That’s it; we’re outa here.”

Disputes downgrade. Quotes Warren Buffett that U.S. should have AAAA rating.
Need “balanced long term approach” — needed “day I took office.” Blames “prolonged debate over debt ceiling” for downgrade, and string of economic disruptions in Japan, Europe and the Middle East.

Solution is simple: “Tax reform that will ask those who can afford it to pay their fair share.” And “modest adjustments” to entitlements.

Not a lack of plans, “insistence on drawing lines in the sand.”

Most immediate concern of Americans is slow pace of recovery coming out of “worst recession” in our lifetimes. Extend payroll tax cut as soon as possible, and extend unemployment insurance payments. One million fewer jobs if don’t do this. Plus, more infrastructure spending.

These are proposals Republicans had agreed to in the past and should agree to now.

“This is the United States of America, no matter what some ratings agency says, we will always be a AAA country.”

So put on your make-believe pirate hats, boys and girls. Because we’re going to live in a fun pretend world where we AREN’T downgraded and all of Obama’s utterly failed policies are just working swell.

I like the way the headline brings out that only Obama’s line in the sand demanding tax hikes will be accepted. If you have your own ideas, you’re responsible for the crisis because OBAMA IS HE WHO MUST NOT BE HELD RESPONSIBLE.

I’ve been pointing out since December 2008 right after Obama was elected that we would be staring into the abyss of a Great Depression due to this evil man’s failed policies. I pointed out in that article that the Great Depression began with a market tank, followed by a series of failed liberal-progressive policies that were like sugar for a diabetic; at first things seemed to get better, and then we had the real crash. You look at what I wrote in that article and tell me that we aren’t right on schedule.

Let the words of Turbo Tax (so named because the man who would be charged with enforcing US tax laws and policy failed to pay his own damned taxes and then blamed it on Turbo Tax) Timothy Geithner now resonate throughout the land:

That now proven-to-be-utterly stupid pronouncement was not what people who had something of an actual clue were saying prior to the debt deal:

Only seven days stand between the U.S. and the effects of a credit default. But a downgrade of the nation’s stellar AAA credit rating seems a lot more likely, and a lot sooner.

The White House had been alerted repeatedly over the past month by rating agencies that without a strong, long-term plan to restructure the country’s debt, they would lower America’s credit rating as soon as this Friday, according to two officials familiar with the process. The White House was warned that the deal would have to be significant—and not a short-term fix over the next few days to avoid a credit drop.

Which makes it worth asking: Just what DOES this fool actually understand? And why on earth should anyone believe anything he says after this???

Notice that the following article was questioning Geithner’s basic intelligence well before the S & P decision to downgrade the US credit rating Friday at a time when maybe Geithner could have turned out to be correct.

Fox Business reporter Peter Barnesbegan his televised interview with Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner two days ago with this question: “Is there a risk that the United States could lose its AAA credit rating? Yes or no?”

It’s enough to make you wonder: How could Geithner know this to be true? The short answer is he couldn’t.

All you have to do is read the research reportStandard & Poor’s published on April 18 about its sovereign-credit rating for the U.S., and you will see it estimated the risk of a downgrade quite succinctly. “We believe there is at least a one-in-three likelihood that we could lower our long-term rating on the U.S. within two years,” said S&P, which reduced its outlook on the government’s debt to “negative” from“stable.”

There you have it: Geithner says the chance of a downgrade is zero. S&P says the odds it will cut its rating might be greater than one out of three. So who are you going to believe? Geithner? Or the people at S&P who actually will be deciding what S&P will do about S&P’s own rating of U.S. sovereign debt?

It would be one thing to express the view that a downgrade would be unwarranted, or that the chance of it happening is remote. Either of these positions would be defensible. Geithner went beyond that and staked out an absolutist stance that reeks of raw arrogance: There is no risk a rating cut will occur. He left no room for a trace of a possibility, ever.

Battling Barney

The mystery is why Geithner would say such a thing. What’s he going to do if S&P or some other rating company winds up disagreeing with him? Send Barney Frank to beat them up? The problem for leaders who make indefensible claims like this one is that, after a while, nobody knows whether to believe anything they say. Just remember all those government officials inGreece, Ireland and Portugal who kept saying their countries didn’t need bailouts, long after it became clear they did.

This was the same answer Geithner gave during an ABC News interview in February 2010, when asked if the U.S. might lose its AAA rating. “Absolutely not,” he said. “That will never happen to this country.” So, an asteroid could destroy the entire Eastern seaboard 100 years from now. And, in the world according to Geithner, we’re supposed to believe America’s top rating would be safe.

Perhaps Geithner would be well-positioned to make such assessments if he were the only person on the planet with the authority to grade sovereign debt — and if there were zero risk that he would ever die. Not only is Geithner mortal, he doesn’t even work for a nationally recognized statistical rating organization.

[…]

Timothy Geithner needs to go. He needs to go like three years ago.

Geithner is the epitome of just how profoundly out-of-touch and arrogant Barack Obama and his failed administration is.

Obama in an interview with CBS said he couldn’t guarantee Social Security checks would be sent out on Aug. 3 if Congress did not raise the debt ceiling by Aug. 2, when the Treasury Department has said it will no longer have the money to pay all of the U.S. bills

Republican Allan West is entirely right in saying, “That’s fear mongering that’s not leadership, that’s sad and pathetic.”

Allow me to point out first of all that this fearmongering from Obama is nothing new. Allow me to quote a Wall Street Journal article from almost immediately after Obama was sworn in as president:

“President Barack Obama has turned fearmongering into an art form. He has repeatedly raised the specter of another Great Depression. First, he did so to win votes in the November election. He has done so again recently to sway congressional votes for his stimulus package.”

Obama’s fearmongering then resulted in our undertaking a suicidal $3.27 TRILLION pork-laden “stimulus” that has massively failed to do what Obama promised it would do at a giantic cost to our children. But he is an evil, cynical loathsome man who has experience in the fact that the lowest common denominator often wins.

Let’s move on to a demonstration of a man who is A) a liar; B) a fearmonger; and C) the worst kind of demagogue. Let me begin by citing the Bipartisan Policy Center:

With under a month left until the U.S. hits its statutory limit to borrow more money, Republicans and Democrats continue to disagree about what exactly would happen if Congress and the president fail to reach an agreement that raises the debt ceiling.

“Failure to raise the limit would precipitate a default by the United States,” wrote Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner earlier this year. No, that’s not true, say Republicans. There’s enough federal revenue to pay the interest on the debt as well as fund the troops and entitlement programs.

According to a study by the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC), Treasury could indeed avoid a debt default by prioritizing payments, but failure to raise the debt ceiling would mean deep and immediate cuts.

Which is to say that Democrats are lying and fearmongering, and Republicans are telling the truth. But seriously what else is new???

A: In this case, a default would be the failure by the U.S. Treasury to make payments of principal or interest on its debt in a timely manner.

Q: In a given month how much does the Treasury owe as interest on its debt?

A: Roughly about $15–20 billion (more on this in a moment).

Q: How much revenue does the Treasury take in on average in a month?

A: Roughly about $200 billion.

Q: Are you saying the Treasury could pay interest on its debt 10 times over (or more) from monthly income?

A: Yes. Therefore the likelihood of not paying interest on its debt is zero.

Q: But, what about redeeming bonds that come due?

A: As bonds come due, the Treasury would again use monthly income to pay them off. This would lower the debt owed beneath the so-called debt ceiling. Then, the Treasury could turn around and issue debt in that amount up to the debt ceiling.

Q: Why then do Treasury Secretary Geithner and others in government make such apocalyptic statement about the horrors of default.

A: I’m afraid Secretary Geithner and others in government are doing the moral equivalent of yelling “Fire!” in a crowded theater and they are doing so for political reasons rather than financial reasons. They simply do not want any interruptions in the bloated spending underway in Washington and they want to scare Americans into thinking the end of the world is nigh unless the gravy train keeps chugging along.

Math is hard for politicians

Now, let’s do the math to flesh out some of these points. I know that for many politicians and pundits math is hard, but I’ll try to make it as simple as possible. If we do not raise the debt ceiling by August 2nd, we will not default on Treasury obligations. Nor, will we have trouble making Social Security payments. However, there would be a big drop — roughly 44% — in government spending because that percentage represents the difference between government revenues which would be about $200 billion for the full month of August and $172 billion for August if we start counting after the first week when the deadline hits. Spending is slated to be over $300 billion that month.

Here are the numbers from an excellent and highly detailed study by the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) quoted in this piece [emphasis added]:

…The BPC study found that the United States is likely to hit the debt limit sometime between August 2 and August 9. “It’s a 44 percent overnight cut in federal spending” if Congress hits the debt limit, [BPC’s Jay] Powell said. The BPC study projects there will be $172 billion in federal revenues in August and $307 billion in authorized expenditures. That means there’s enough money to pay for, say, interest on the debt ($29 billion), Social Security ($49.2 billion), Medicare and Medicaid ($50 billion), active duty troop pay ($2.9 billion), veterans affairs programs ($2.9 billion).

That leaves you with about $39 billion to fund (or not fund) the following:

Defense vendors ($31.7 billion)

IRS refunds ($3.9 billion)

Food stamps and welfare ($9.3 billion)

Unemployment insurance benefits ($12.8 billion)

Department of Education ($20.2 billion)

Housing and Urban Development ($6.7 billion)

Other spending, such as Departments of Justice, Labor, Commerce, EPA, HHS ($73.6 billion)

The decision to prioritize payments would fall on the Treasury department, and Powell points out it would be chaotic picking and choosing who gets paid (in full or partially) and who doesn’t…

No doubt picking and choosing who gets paid and who doesn’t would be chaotic. And, lots of programs would not get their funding and that would lead to plenty of screaming. Nonetheless, it should be clear from this exactly how much we are spending in excess of government revenues. And, that could and should lead to a sober assessment of what government can and cannot do.

We can easily make all of our debt payments (both interest and principal), our Social Security payments, our contributions to Medicare and Medicaid, our payments to our active duty soldiers and provide funding to the VA system. With room to spare. Barack Obama and Timothy Geithner (a lying weasel who didn’t pay his own taxes) are lying weasels.

They are treacherous and un-American. They are the very worst kind of cockroaches. They represent everything that is wrong with this country’s political system. What Obama is doing is low and loathsome beneath contemptible. The only way that we wouldn’t send out Social Security checks is if Obama decides to fund demonic ACORN instead of sending out those checks (see here and then see here and here). And the scumbag might actually do that because he’s simply that wicked and depraved and uncaring about the American people or their suffering.

At the center of his tiny, shriveled little cockroach soul, Barack Obama is a Marxist.

Allow me to recite the central tenet of Marxism: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.” And please, PLEASE someone explain to me how Barack Obama and the modern Democrat Party are NOT Marxist given that they believe the SAME garbage. Liberals constantly huff at the suggestion that they are socialists as though it is the silliest damn thing they have ever heard. The thing is that they don’t want their ideology identified with socialism merely because it is a bad word. BUT “IT” IS A BAD WORD FOR A REASON, AND “IT” IS IN FACT PRECISELY WHAT THEY ARE.

Over the past several weeks, America has seen on grand display in Washington a singular mindset emanating from the White House: We must raise taxes so that we can keep on spending. This week, though, America was treated to something different—a glimpse inside President Barack Obama’s mind, a roadmap of his economic worldview. And what was revealed was a philosophy that is fundamentally at odds with America’s job creators.

That insight came during the President’s press conference on Monday in which he broached the subject of raising taxes as part of the debt limit deal:

“And I do not want, and I will not accept, a deal in which I am asked to do nothing, in fact, I’m able to keep hundreds of thousands of dollars in additional income that I don’t need, while a parent out there who is struggling to figure out how to send their kid to college suddenly finds that they’ve got a couple thousand dollars less in grants or student loans.”

If you read between the lines, which doesn’t take much decoding, President Obama effectively believes that any income you have which you don’t “need” belongs to the government, as writer John Steele Gordon explains in Commentary. And, Gordon writes, Obama’s statement “demonstrates an astonishing economic illiteracy”:

To be sure, someone earning a great deal of money has an income greater than what he spends. . . But, unlike Scrooge McDuck, the rich do not put the excess in a vast money bin and frolic about in it. They invest it. What a concept! Where does Obama think new capital comes from, the tooth fairy?

How much income is too much? It’s hard to say, and the President doesn’t put a number on it. But that high-tax policy is so important to the President that he is willing to personalize the issue, offering up the fact that he has made a boatload selling books and can afford to pay taxes on it, as he did in his Twitter town hall when he remarked:

“But what I’ve also said is people like me who have been incredibly fortunate, mainly because a lot of folks bought my book . . . for me to be able to go back to the tax rate that existed under Bill Clinton, to pay a couple of extra percentage points so that I can make sure that seniors still have Medicare or kids still have Head Start, that makes sense to me.”

On top of personalizing the issue, the President is pulling out all the stops in a take-no-prisoners demagoguery campaign, ranging from the subtle to the explicit. His criticisms of tax loopholes for corporate jets and oil and gas companies are legion, his calls for millionaires and billionaires to “pay a little bit more” are anything but subtle, and his threats over the failure to reach a tax-soaked debt limit deal are frightening.

The President’s “your money is the government’s money” mindset is having an impact on the mind’s of America’s job creators. A new survey of small business owners and executives prepared for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce shows how the U.S. political environment has impacted the business environment, and the insights are troubling.

According to the survey, a vast majority of small business owners (84 percent) say the U.S. economy is on the wrong track. Tellingly, the threat of regulation and taxes are the two issues in Washington posing the greatest threat to their business, while economic uncertainty, America’s growing debt and deficit and Obamacare are top challenges as well. And when asked whether they’d like Washington to lend a hand or get out of they, 79 percent choose the latter.

And therein lies the difference. When President Obama sees successful businesses, he sees green. And when they look back, they see red. The President wants to take more so he can spend more and do more, whereas those who are the engine of America’s economy just want the government to do less so they can thrive. Unfortunately, a meeting of the minds seems a long way off.

Democrats are at their hearts Marxists and fascists who believe that you and everything you produce belongs to the government – and that the government should belong entirely to THEM so that they have the power to decide who wins and who loses. I’ve written about this fact at length before. Again, this is a central tenet of Marxism and socialism, but for some reason we’re not supposed to be able to call these people what they clearly are.

Mind you, this disgraceful little turd Barry Hussein is a HYPOCRITE Marxist, as the following evidence of what a stingy, selfish, greedy little swine Obama was with his own money just a few short years ago when he was a rich liberal who didn’t think anyone was watching. Amazingly, the facts show that Obama didn’t seem to think there was such a thing as “money he didn’t need” then:

Prior to his run for President, Barack and Michelle Obama were in the top 2% of income earners, but actually gave less than the average American in charitable giving.

Obama gave .4% of his income. In spite of being rich, and being in the top richest 2% of Americans, Obama gave only $1,050 to charity. When the average American household (that’s mostly us in the bottom 98%) gave $1,872, which was 2.2% of their incomes.

Obama seemed to “need” every penny of his money when he was selfishly refusing to give basically ANYTHING to the poor that he now so hypocritically and self-righteously claims he cares about. And that is a FACT. So when this vile little hypocrite weasel self-righteously lectures us on how much we should be willing to give more in taxes to Big Brother, just realize it is coming from the very worst kind of demagogue and liar.

Then there’s the fact that if these rich liberals want to give more money, THEN THEY CAN AND SHOULD GIVE MORE MONEY. They can give to charity; they can give to a government fund that uses the money to pay down the debt when they do their taxes. They keep talking about how generous they should be but they never seem to be generous with their own money.

And then you find that as cheap and chintzy and stingy and selfish as the redistribution of wealth president (a.k.a. Barry Hussein) was before he decided to run for president, his vice president was even STINGIER. Because Joe Biden gave less than one-eighth of one percent of his wealth to charity.

And, of course, Democrats who lecture us on “paying our fair share” while they either welch on their debts, refuse to contribute to charity, cheat on their taxes, or all damn three are a dime a dozen. Let’s have a few prominent examples: Bill and Hillary Clinton, who have largely welched on Hillary’s campaign debts. There’s Charlie Rangel, the man who chaired the committee that wrote the tax laws while not bothering to pay his own damn taxes. There’s “Turbo Tax” Timothy Geithner, the man in charge of the Treasury and I.R.S. who didn’t bother to pay his own taxes. There’s former Democrat candidate for president John Kerry, a millionaire, who tried to wriggle away like the worm he is from paying the taxes he should have paid on his yacht. There’s Kerry’s wife and fellow Democrat Teresa Heinz-Kerry, who in spite of inheriting the Heinz fortune actually pays less in taxes than the median American family. And then there’s a bunch of more garden variety cockroach Democrats such as Eric Holder, Tom Daschle, Bill Richardson, and Claire McCaskill. And don’t forget the vile putrid bunch of Democrats running Bell, California.

And let me throw in “San Fran Nan” Nancy Pelosi into the mix. Here’s an already filthy rich woman who increased her wealth by 62% last year while millions of Americans are suffering. She’d certainly be one who would say, “Screw America, screw the American people and screw the unemployment rate; I’m getting MINE.

These people just make me want to lose my lunch into a bucket. That’s something I wouldn’t mind donating to the government.

I once quoted Burton Folsom in his great book “New Deal Or Raw Deal?” It’s time to quote that passage again:

Throughout American history, right from the start, charity had been a state and local function. Civic leaders, local clergy, and private citizens, evaluated the legitimacy of people’s need in their communities or counties; churches and other organizations could then provide food, shelter, and clothing to help victims of fires or women abandoned by drunken husbands. Most Americans believed that the face-to-face encounters of givers and receivers of charity benefited both groups. It created just the right amount of uplift and relief, and discouraged laziness and a poor work ethic.

The Founders saw all relief as local and voluntary, and the Constitution gave no federal role for the government in providing charity. James Madison, in defending the Constitution, observed, “No man is allowed to be a judge in his own cause, because his interest would certainly bias his judgment and, not improbably, corrupt his integrity.” In other words, if relief, and other areas, were made functions of the federal government, the process would become politicized and politicians and deadbeats could conspire to trade votes for food” (New Deal or Raw Deal, page 76-77).

Prior to FDR, the American people took care of their OWN, family by family, town by town, county by county, state by state. They had NEVER had welfare, and in fact found the very concept of welfare distasteful. And I’m going to tell you right now that they were better, stronger people than we are as a result of that moral superiority and that faith in THE PEOPLE and not the GOVERNMENT.

Barack Obama – who gave virtually NOTHING to charity when giving would have demonstrated the character he proved he DIDN’T have – doesn’t trust the American people, or much care about them, for that matter. He doesn’t want to help people; he wants to grow the size of government. He wants only to make the state bigger and bigger and more and more powerful and controlling. Obama is angry because he doesn’t believe people should have the right to decide for themselves how much of their own money they “need”; HE wants to make that decision for them and then impose it on them so he can seize their money and redistribute it to people who will vote for him and for his party.

Whenever a Democrat calls for more taxes, understand that what they are really saying is that they believe that the government is too small and needs to become larger. And whenever they call for more taxes for the sake of helping people, what they are really saying is that you are a bad and immoral person who can’t and shouldn’t be trusted to help people in need and that it is better to take your money away from you and put it into the coffers of a big government socialist redistributionist agency which will piss it away on boondoggle programs that benefit the politically connected far more than they do the poor. And the fact that even as Barack Obama and the overwhelming Democrat majority that had dictatorial control of both branches of Congress made government bigger than it has ever been and yet blacks are now worse off than they’ve been for generations and women are being set way back is the icing on the cake of the proof of that fact. Liberals hurt the people they cynically and falsely claim to be helping – and then demagogically use the misery that they themselves created to accumulate even more power for themselves and their failed agenda.

All those who were hoping global stock markets would surge tomorrow based on a ridiculous rumor that China would revalue the CNY by 10% will have to wait. Instead, China has decided to serve the world another surprise. Following last week’s announcement by PBoC Governor Zhou (Where’s Waldo) Xiaochuan that the country’s excessive stockpile of USD reserves has to be urgently diversified, today we get a sense of just how big the upcoming Chinese defection from the “buy US debt” Nash equilibrium will be. Not surprisingly, China appears to be getting ready to cut its USD reserves by roughly the amount of dollars that was recently printed by the Fed, or $2 trilion or so. And to think that this comes just as news that the Japanese pension fund will soon be dumping who knows what. So, once again, how about that “end of QE” again?

China’s foreign exchange reserves increased by 197.4 billion U.S. dollars in the first three months of this year to 3.04 trillion U.S. dollars by the end of March.

Xia Bin, a member of the monetary policy committee of the central bank, said on Tuesday that 1 trillion U.S. dollars would be sufficient. He added that China should invest its foreign exchange reserves more strategically, using them to acquire resources and technology needed for the real economy.

And as if the public sector making it all too clear what is about to happen was not enough, here is the private one as well:

China should reduce its excessive foreign exchange reserves and further diversify its holdings, Tang Shuangning, chairman of China Everbright Group, said on Saturday.

The amount of foreign exchange reserves should be restricted to between 800 billion to 1.3 trillion U.S. dollars, Tang told a forum in Beijing, saying that the current reserve amount is too high.

Tang’s remarks echoed the stance of Zhou Xiaochuan, governor of China’s central bank, who said on Monday that China’s foreign exchange reserves “exceed our reasonable requirement” and that the government should upgrade and diversify its foreign exchange management using the excessive reserves.

Tang also said that China should further diversify its foreign exchange holdings. He suggested five channels for using the reserves, including replenishing state-owned capital in key sectors and enterprises, purchasing strategic resources, expanding overseas investment, issuing foreign bonds and improving national welfare in areas like education and health.

However, these strategies can only treat the symptoms but not the root cause, he said, noting that the key is to reform the mechanism of how the reserves are generated and managed.

The last sentence says it all. While China is certainly tired of recycling US Dollars, it still has no viable alternative, especially as long as its own currency is relegated to the C-grade of not even SDR-backing currencies. But that will all change very soon. Once the push for broad Chinese currency acceptance is in play, the CNY and the USD will be unpegged, promptly followed by China dumping the bulk of its USD exposure, and also sending the world a message that US debt is no longer a viable investment opportunity. In fact, we are confident that the reval is a likely a key preceding step to any strategic decision vis-a-vis US FX exposure (read bond purchasing/selling intentions). As such, all those Americans pushing China to revalue, may want to consider that such an action could well guarantee hyperinflation, once the Fed is stuck as being the only buyer of US debt.

“We want some kind of a guarantee that your money is going to be worth something if you keep spending so much over there and devalue not only your currency but the currencies throughout the world… We hate you guys. Once you start issuing $1 trillion, $2 trillion, or more dollars, we know the dollar is going to depreciate.”

But of course, that is precisely what Obama did: issue $1 trillion, then $2 trillion, then so on and so forth, in new spending. And now our dollar is tanking into poo-poo land.

Today, eight city council members were arrested in Bell, California for what Los Angeles County District Attorney labeled “corruption on steroids.” Thus far, every major news outlet that has reported on the story has omitted the fact that all eight individuals arrested are Democrats.

These glaring omissions come only weeks after NewsBusters reported that of the 351 stories on the then-brewing controversy, 350 had omitted party affiliations, and one had mentioned they were Democrats only in apologizing for not doing so sooner.

One commenter at CNN’s online story got it spot on: “I notice there is no mention of the party affiliation of the accused. I can find no mention of it in any story on the internet. This must mean they were all Democrats.”

Give the man a cigar.

Together, the eight city officials “misappropriated” $5.5 million in municipal funds. Robert Rizzo, the chief culprit, was arrested on 53 counts of various brands of corruption.

Before the scandal came to light, Rizzo had been making roughly $1.5 million per year, even though the per capita income in Bell is roughly half the national average.

Pedro Carillo, Bell’s interim city manager, released a statement on the arrests today:

Given the sheer volume of charges levied against former Bell Chief Administrative Officer Robert Rizzo and former Assistant CAO Angela Spaccia by the district attorney, it is clear that Rizzo and Spaccia were at the root of the cancer that has afflicted the City of Bell. Also, it is a sad day for Bell that four current and two former members of the council also have been arrested. I am prepared to double down our efforts to continue to restore order, establish good government reforms, and to ensure that Bell is providing needed services to its residents.

Despite arrests in one of the most massive cases of municipal corruption in recent memory, no media outlet could bring itself to mention the officials’ party affiliations, a fact that has been widely reported since the scandal entered the national spotlight.

There was basically ONE acknowledgment that the corrupt politicians who filched MILLIONS of dollars for themselves in the form of insanely lucrative salaries and pensions – all at the courtesy of taxpayers, of course – were all in fact DEMOCRATS. That came from The Orange County Register. And even then, that admission only resulted from the fact that knowledgeable readers complained about the omission:

In the wake of the Bell salary scandal, our readers noticed one part of the story has been left out by virtually all media sources, including our related editorials and columns: the political party affiliations of the five city council members who not only failed to protect city coffers, but participated in what amounts to shameless, if apparently legal, self-dealing.

All five council members are members of the Democratic Party.

Jack Abramoff wasn’t even a Republican official, but by the time the mainstream media got through with the story, there was naught an American who didn’t know that Republicans were evil as a result of their reporting of the 2005-2006 story. And the fact that a number of prominent Democrats were involved, too, somehow got little mention, of course.

Now, the media could have made a similar example out of Democrat Tim Mahoney, who replaced Mark Foley in the very same West Palm Beach, Florida district. In terms of breaking the law and being a slimeball, Mahoney did far worse than anything Foley did – and just in time to be the poster boy for Democrat malfeasance in advance of the 2008 elections. But the same media that turned Mark Foley into a household name were nowhere to be found.

And, as I predicted, two years later and nobody knows who Tim Mahoney was anymore.

Tim Mahoney spent $121,000 of taxpayer money to keep an aide with whom he was sexually involved with from talking after she threatened to sue him. He threatened his tax-dollar-funded mistress and said to her, “You work at my pleasure. Do you understand what that means?”

Mahoney self-righteously claimed he would be better than Mark Foley. He was actually the guy the Democrats tasked to lead the way in the Democrats’ ethics reform package. And yet the mainstream media couldn’t seem to find a hitch to hang a story about the guy.

Journalists couldn’t bring themselves to harm Democrats. Because they are partisan and biased. And they don’t report the facts, they slant them.

CNN joined MSNBC in “quoting” Rush Limbaugh to effect that he is a racist. And as a result of these “bigoted remarks,” Rush Limbaugh was thrown out of an ownership package to purchase the St. Louis Rams.

CNN anchor Rick Sanchez read a disputed racist quote attributed to Rush Limbaugh about antebellum slavery on Monday’s Newsroom: “Limbaugh’s perceived racist diatribes are too many to name. Here’s a sample- he once declared that ‘slavery built the South. I’m not saying we should bring it back. I’m just saying it had its merits. For one thing, the streets were safer after dark.’”

And that certainly wasn’t all that Rick Sanchez said. Go to the link for more, and for the embedded video of the “reporting.”

You want to talk about the racist calling the kettle “racist”?

Rush Limbaugh never said any of the things that Rick Sanchez claimed. It was a terrible, biased, ideological, serial slandering by someone who professed himself to be an “objective journalist.”

I want you to understand. Clearly, Rick Sanchez didn’t go after Rush Limbaugh because Rush Limbaugh is racist. It’s RICK who is racist, not RUSH. No, Rick Sanchez targeted Rush Limbaugh because, like most of his fellow “journalists,” Rick Sanchez is a partisan, biased, ideologue propagandist.

If the media were to report the facts fairly, accurately and honestly, the Republicans would have dominated the political landscape since FDR nearly destroyed America with the same policies that Obama is using to destroy the country today.

Last week, President Obama signed historic health care reform legislation into law — but his legislative success doesn’t seem to have helped his image with the American public.

The latest CBS News Poll, conducted between March 29 and April 1, found Americans unhappier than ever with Mr. Obama’s handling of health care – and still worried about the state of the economy.

President Obama’s overall job approval rating has fallen to an all-time low of 44 percent, down five points from late March, just before the health bill’s passage in the House of Representatives. It’s down 24 points since his all-time high last April. Forty-one percent of those polled said they disapproved of the president’s performance.

More results from this CBS News Poll will be released in Friday’s broadcast of the Evening News with Katie Couric, which airs at 6:30 p.m. Eastern.

When it comes to health care, the President’s approval rating is even lower — and is also a new all-time low. Only 34 percent approved, while 55 percent said they disapproved.

Americans are still worried about the economy, with 84 percent telling CBS they thought it was still in bad condition. However, even that high number represents an improvement: nine in ten thought the economy was bad during the last half of 2008 and at the beginning of 2009, when Mr. Obama assumed the Presidency.

Concern about job loss remains high; slightly more Americans now (35 percent) than in February (31 percent) were “very concerned” that someone in their household would lose a job. Nearly six in ten Americans said they were at least “somewhat concerned” about a job loss.

As has often been the case, lower-income Americans tend to be the most concerned about job loss.

This concern is reflected in yet another low approval rating — this time for the President’s handling of the economy. Just 42 percent said they approved of how President Obama is handling the economy, only one point above January’s all-time low. Half of the public disapproves.

It gets even better as we learn how truly outraged independents are over the incredibly polarizing and partisan tactics this incredibly dishonest, cynical weasel has used to “fundamentally transform” a free market economy into socialism. From the Washington Times:

President Obama and congressional Democrats face an uphill climb to reclaim the support of independent voters who vaulted them to the White House and huge majorities in Congress in 2008.

At the end of the bitter, intensely partisan battle to pass Mr. Obama’s health care overhaul plan, independent voters, once captivated by hopeful campaign promises, are feeling burned and appear eager to oust Democrats in November’s midterm elections.

This is the time that we need to take a page from both Barack Obama AND Sarah Palin.

First we need to get “Fired up, ready to go.” And then we need to RELOAD before getting fired up again. And again. And again. And again, until the worst and most radical and most unAmerican president in history is long gone to go along with the Democrat disaster in Congress.

Obama and the Democrats KNEW that ObamaCare was reviled by the American people; and then they usurped the will of the people and used every parliamentary trick in the book to impose it anyway.

The yield on 10-year Treasuries – the benchmark price of global capital – surged 30 basis points in just two days last week to over 3.9pc, the highest level since the Lehman crisis. Alan Greenspan, ex-head of the US Federal Reserve, said the abrupt move may be “the canary in the coal mine”, a warning to Washington that it can no longer borrow with impunity. He said there is a “huge overhang of federal debt, which we have never seen before”.

David Rosenberg at Gluskin Sheff said Treasury yields have ratcheted up 90 basis points since December in a “destabilising fashion”, for the wrong reasons. Growth has not been strong enough to revive fears of inflation. Commodity prices peaked in January and US home sales have fallen for the last three months, pointing to a double-dip in the housing market.

And why is this?

The trigger for last week’s sell-off was poor demand at Treasury auctions, linked to the passage of the Obama health care reform. Critics say it will add $1 trillion (£670bn) to America’s debt over the next decade, a claim disputed fiercely by Democrats.

The unemployment rate “is still terribly high and is going to stay unacceptably high for a very long time,” Geithner said.

Of course, if unemployment is going to stay “unacceptably high” for “a very long time,” you’re pretty much accepting it, aren’t you?

You can accept an “unacceptably” awful one-party rule that is destroying the American way of life chunk by chunk, or you can refuse to accept the “unacceptable” and vote these radicals out of office in seven months.

Democrats are betting that you are too stupid and too short-sighted to hold them accountable.

SEC’Y GEITHNER: You know, what the government did was to step in and make sure we’re providing the tax cuts and investments necessary to arrest the crisis, get credit markets starting to open up again. And we did that, that plan worked. But we’ve got a ways to go before…

GREGORY: But that’s a big question, whether or not–yes, you have growth for the first time in four quarters. But is any of this growth sustainable without government intervention?

SEC’Y GEITHNER: It will be, it will be. But what the government has to do in a crisis is to provide a bridge until the economy can repair itself and businesses are confident enough to start to invest again. And again, you’re starting to see it again. Businesses now, I think they’ll say–you talk to people across the country, they’ll say that they feel that things are more stable now and for the first time they see orders starting to pick up. And what’ll happen is they’ll start to invest again, they’ll start to bring people back onto their payroll and this will get more momentum.

GREGORY: But that happened hasn’t yet–hasn’t happened yet. We’ll get into that a little bit more in just a minute.

The question about consumer spending that really drove the market down on Friday, it’s off, biggest level that it’s been off in nine months. Again, people are not consuming.

SEC’Y GEITHNER: There’s nothing new in those numbers on Friday. They were in the GDP report. No incremental news in those numbers. So again, the overall picture for the economy is that consumers are a little more confident now, confident enough to start to spend again, investments starting to spend again. You know, there was another number on Friday that showed business confidence, in the Chicago survey, showing a little more optimism about the future, too. And–but, you know, again, this is a tough economy still, it’s going to take some time. But we’re committed to making sure we’re reinforcing this progress we’ve seen.

Seriously, exactly which part of that does Mr. Boy Genius Tim Geithner – who was so brilliant that we desperately needed him even though he was too incompetent or dishonest (or both!) to know how to pay his own taxes – fail to understand? Consumers AREN’T “a little more confident,” Turbo Tax; they’re a LOT LESS confident!

The “growth” in GDP was almost entirely fueled by government spending. That is a trend toward utter catastrophe and Zimbabwe-like hyperinflation, rather than anything positive. It is absolutely unsustainable. It is a terrible sign of artificially-generated growth by debt-fueled spending, rather than a sign for any kind of hope.

When our Treasury Secretary has his head so buried up Obama’s butt that he can’t understand simple realities, we are in a giant load of trouble. And the anvil is being cued to drop as we speak.

Let’s go on. Maybe Geithner and the Obama administration have some kind of solution, some kind of plan to help get us out of the problem they don’t even understand exists in the first place:

GREGORY: Do we need another cash for clunkers program to stimulate the economy?

SEC’Y GEITHNER: I don’t think at the moment–well, let me start this way, David. About half of the money in the Recovery Act, tax cuts and investments, are still ahead of us. So there’s a lot of force still moving its way through the system now, and you’re going to see that continue to provide support for the economy going forward.

I interrupt at this point to point out that the Obama administration is literally refuting itself here Geithner says the stimulus is going to creating beneficial impact. But Obama’s chair for his Council for Economic Advisers claimed the exact opposite, saying:

“By mid-2010, fiscal stimulus will likely be contributing little to further growth.”

So which is it?

And pardon me while I mockingly laugh at an administration that is publicly literally talking out of both sides of their mouth at the same time.

In any event, when Geithner confidently declares that the stimulus that never really did squat in the first place is going to continue to continue to produce wonderful changes in the first place, you don’t have to go any farther than another key Obama official to see that that just isn’t true.

In other words, it was an even bigger disaster than Republicans predicted it would be when they overwhelmingly opposed the program.

But we continue with Gregory and Geithner:

GREGORY: Could you have had more impact if more of that money were paid out? You still have about $500 billion of the stimulus that has not been paid out yet. How long will it take to get paid out?

SEC’Y GEITHER: Actually, I–again, it was designed to pay out over two years, because we knew it was going to take a long time to repair the damage we started with earlier this year. So it was designed to pay out over this period of time. And I think it’s actually delivering better results sooner than we would expect. I think we’re seeing better outcomes in the financial sector, in the economy than many of us would’ve thought when we sat there with the president in Chicago at the end of last year.

GREGORY: Right. Well, but that’s not exactly true, because the president’s team said you’d keep unemployment to 8 percent if you didn’t have the stimulus, so.

SEC’Y GEITHNER: No. No, you’re right, the unemployment is worse than almost everybody expected. But growth is back a little more quickly, a little stronger than people thought, and growth is a necessary condition. With growth jobs will come, but growth has to come first. But just look at the financial sector. You know, you’ve had banks repaying money with interest. Taxpayers are getting substantial earnings on this big investment in the financial system, and that’s delivering good, good returns for the American taxpayer.

When high-level officials like Biden and Geithner say things like, “almost everybody was just shocked,” it shows how utterly insulated and ignorant these clowns who are running our government truly are.

Basically, 47% of the country didn’t vote for Obama. And the 47% were the ones who turned out to be right.

The Obama administration consists on a bunch of weasels who are trying to dodge their central economic claim. They said their massive stimulus (which actually cost taxpayers $3.27 TRILLION, by the way) would prevent unemployment from reaching 8%. They were wrong. Everything they thought was wrong. And now “everybody” but them should be held responsible for their failure.

GREGORY: Let’s talk about claims of success about jobs. The White House says 640,000 jobs have been created or saved by the $800 billion stimulus. There are Republicans who say the number is bogus, that it’s just PR. John Boehner, leader of the Republicans in the House, as you well know, circulated a quote from an economist at Carnegie, Carnegie Mellon University, and I’ll put it up on the screen and you can look at it: “One can search economic textbooks forever without finding a concept called `jobs saved.’ It doesn’t exist for good reason: how can anyone know that his or her job has been saved?” You’ve got a lot of experience in the economy. Is this PR or fact?

SEC’Y GEITHNER: This is fact. Again, at–when the president took office, this economy was falling at the rate of 6.5 percent at an annual rate per year, fastest rate in decades. We were losing three-quarters of a million jobs a month. Now, the pace of job loss has slowed dramatically, the economy’s now growing again. It’s growing not just because the effects of the Recovery Act. Many people opposed the Recovery Act, said it wasn’t going to work. It’s working, it’s delivering what it should result–what it should, it should produce. Value of Americans’ savings are up almost 35 percent since the beginning of the year. Interest rates down. These are substantially powerful returns on the Recovery Act, and they are delivering what they were designed to deliver.

GREGORY: OK. What is a saved job? How do you measure that?

SEC’Y GEITHNER: A, a saved–well…

GREGORY: It’s not something an economist recognizes as an actual fact.

Thank you, David Gregory. You must work for Fox News, given the fact that the White House has been demonizing Fox News as a propaganda outlet due to the fact that it presents the facts rather than Obama’s propaganda.

Rep. Kevin Brady (R-TX): “The administration, including the vice president, has claimed that stimulus policies have added 150,000 new jobs to the level of employment. We see this cited almost daily by the administration. Can you substantiate that claim?”

Mr. Keith Hall, Commissioner Of Bureau Of Labor Statistics: “No. That would be a very difficult thing for anybody to substantiate.”

“Created or saved” is a meaningless superficial category created by meaningless superficial people to advance a meaningless superficial agenda.

It doesn’t matter how deceitful the Obama’s bogus claims are, because they are liars without shame and they don’t give a damn about reality. And they can’t solve the unemployment problem because they can’t get past their own propaganda.

Gregory goes on a little later and points out:

GREGORY: Right. But my, but my point is that this should not be overstated, the impact of the stimulus should not be overstated. Here’s the facts about how many jobs have been lost since the stimulus: 2.7 million. And you’ve got 14 states who have double-digit unemployment. You can look at the top five, with Michigan at the top with 15.3 percent unemployment. So you say it could’ve been a lot of worse.

SEC’Y GEITHNER: David…

GREGORY: A, it’s still very bad, and B, the stimulus has had only a minimal effect.

SEC’Y GEITHNER: Actually–no, no, I wouldn’t say that. I said actually, even those numbers understate it, because there’s lots of people who are underemployed, working less they would like. So again, this is a very tough economy. It’s only been three initial months of positive growth. It’s going to take some time for unemployment to come down and for jobs to get created again. And that’s why it’s important to–for people to recognize that we have a responsibility to keep working at this so we’re reinforcing the recovery.

GREGORY: How high will unemployment go, do you think?

SEC’Y GEITHNER: Don’t know for sure, but it’s likely still rising and it, it probably going to rise further before it starts to come down again.

GREGORY: Double digits?

SEC’Y GEITHNER: Most economists think we’ll probably get there, and–but again, the economists think–and, you know, there’s a lot of uncertainty in this. Economists don’t know that, don’t know that much about the future, David. But they say that they think we’ll start to see net jobs created at the beginning of the year, sometime around the beginning of the year, in the first quarter sometime.

Approximately 3.3 million jobs have been lost since the stimulus act passed, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

But what are 600,000 jobs between friends?

And when Geither says that “most economists think we’ll get [to double digit unemployment], realize that we are going to get there VERY SOON. Geithner is talking about the wonderful effect the stimulus has had on employment even as the unemployment rate is expected to climb to at least 10% when the Bureau of Labor Statistics figures for October come out.

Okay. Things are bad and they’re going to get a lot worse. But the Obama adminstration has some kind of plan, right? I mean, RIGHT?

Nope. Beyond “Blame Bush,” they’ve got NOTHING.

GREGORY: What should the administration be going specifically to reduce unemployment at this point?

SEC’Y GEITHNER: The most important thing is to get growth growing again at a strong pace.

GREGORY: Right. But what can the government…

SEC’Y GEITHNER: That’s the most…

GREGORY: …what should the government be doing?

SEC’Y GEITHNER: The government’s doing exactly what it should be doing. It’s, it’s making sure that there are tax cuts to business and families, investments in improving infrastructure, creating incentives for businesses to spend again, relief for state and local governments and getting this financial system back on its feet.

Gregory could have pointed out that the government ISN’T actually doing ANY of these things. Tax cuts? They plan tax increases. What the Obama administration calls “tax cuts” have been “redistribution of wealth” as the government takes money away from producers and hands it to non-producers. And to small businesses? Are you joking? Geithner claims that stimulus investments have imporoved infrastructure. The problem is and always has been that not enough of the stimulus program ever went to infrastructure in the first place. And what exactly what incentives has Obama provided for businesses to spend again? The fact is, Obama is trying to force businesses to spend more on healthcare, more on job-killing minimum wages, more on electricity, all of which will result in them having a lot LESS to spend on anything else.

That’s okay though, I suppose. Geithner would have spent the rest of his time quibbling over details and pumping sunshine if Gregory had stopped him at his last paragraph.

What Gregory did was continued to push Geithner for SOMETHING that Obama could offer as an economic solution. Something. Anything. And Geithner had nothing.

GREGORY: But do you need more stimulus?

SEC’Y GEITHNER: I don’t think we need to make that judgment yet, David. Again, there’s–about half of the money committed by the Congress is still working its way through the system by design. It was designed to work over two years. So we’re not in a position yet where we need to make a choice about whether it’s going to take more than that…

GREGORY: Right.

[Please go back to what I demonstrated earlier, i.e., that Obama’s own chair for the Council of Economic Advisers actually said the precise opposite.]

We now continue the documentary about the fact that Tim Geithner and Barry Obama have absolutely no clue whatsoever how to fix the economy.

SEC’Y GEITHNER: …to bring growth back. And again, that’s only a bridge. You’re not going to get real recovery until it’s led by the private sector, by businesses.

GREGORY: So I want to be clear, additional stimulus you don’t think is needed right now.

SEC’Y GEITHNER: Not, not yet. Now, Congress is looking at extending unemployment insurance, some other targeted programs that would expire without additional action. You’ve heard Congress today–you heard–saw Congress this week start to talk about extending the first-time homebuyer tax credit, some other measures. We think those will be helpful things for the economy as a whole, and they’ll also provide some added support.

GREGORY: Let me talk about the deficit and the debt. These are alarming numbers, you said they are. Let’s look at the deficit since Inauguration Day: $1.2 trillion, now $1.4 trillion; it’s up 17 percent. The overall debt, Inauguration Day: $10.6 trillion, now $11.9 trillion. What’s it going to be a year from now?

SEC’Y GEITHNER: Well, it’s going to have to come down. Now it’s too high, and I think everybody understands this. You know, we’ve got these two central imperatives: restore growth, create jobs. But make sure people understand we’re going to have to bring those fiscal deficits down as growth recovers. First growth, though. Without growth, you can’t fix those long-term fiscal problems. But you’re not going to have a recovery that’s going to be strong enough unless people are confident we’re going to have the will to go back to live within our means.

GREGORY: How do you bring it down, though? Do taxes have to go up?

SEC’Y GEITHNER: Well, we’re going to have to do–we’re going to have to make some hard choices. The–but we’re not really at the point yet, David, we’re going to know what’s going to be the best path forward. The president’s very committed to bring down these deficits, and he’s very committed to doing so in a way that’s not going to add to the burden on people, people making less than $250,000 a year.

GREGORY: But wait a minute, though, what are hard–I mean, I think a lot of people, it’s fair to say, what are hard choices? I mean, what hard choices have been made so far? Are you going to raise taxes?

SEC’Y GEITHNER: We’re going to have to bring our resources and our expenditures more into balance.

GREGORY: So it’s possible.

SEC’Y GEITHNER: Well, again, the president’s committed to make sure we get this economy back on track. We’re bringing down this deficit over time. And to do so…

GREGORY: Mr. Secretary, you talked about hard choices, so why can’t you give a straight answer to whether taxes have to come up…

SEC’Y GEITHNER: Because…

GREGORY: …when you have a deficit this big?

SEC’Y GEITHNER: Because, David, right now we’re focused on getting growth back on track, OK, and we’re not at the point yet we have to decide exactly what it’s going to take. And I just want to say this very clearly. He was committed in the campaign to make–he said in the campaign and he is committed to make sure we do this in a way that is not going to add to the burden on people making less than $250,000 a year. Now, it’s going to be hard to do that, but he’s committed to doing that and we can do that.

GREGORY: You can do it, but it’s still a chance that you’d have to raise taxes and go back on that if you’ve got a debt this big.

SEC’Y GEITHNER: We’re going to have to do it in a way that’s going to help to meet that test, meet that commitment, the commitment he made, to do it in a way that’s fair to Americans and make sure we do it in a way that’s going to allow–provide for growth and recovery going forward. But we can do this. You know, this is not beyond our capacity as a country to do.

GREGORY: But…

SEC’Y GEITHNER: But first things first.

GREGORY: Right.

SEC’Y GEITHNER: And unless we have a recovery, our long-term debts are going to be worse. Now, you didn’t raise health care yet, but what’s happening on health care now is very encouraging. Because if you look at what independent analysts say now, if you look at these bills moving their way through the Congress, they will make a substantial difference in reducing the rate of growth in healthcare costs over the long term and they will help bring down those long-term deficits.

GREGORY: But there is going to be a heavy burden on the middle-class through, through health care by taxes going up, by premiums going up. It will affect the middle-class.

SEC’Y GEITHNER: You know, I, I, I don’t think that’s the way to look at it. The–our tax–our healthcare system today imposes enormous burdens not just on businesses, but on families. There are very high hidden costs to our current system. And the best way to add to our long-term deficits, and the best way to add to those burdens is not reform health care today.

GREGORY: But it doesn’t answer the question about premiums going up with an individual mandate and taxes going up on so-called Cadillac plans and other parts of this bill as they’re moving their way through the process that would increase taxes.

SEC’Y GEITHNER: Right. Again, I don’t think that’s the right way to think about it. I think you have to look at the entire system today and the cost that presents. And if you look at those…

GREGORY: Well, why isn’t that the right way to look at it if that’s the reality of what the legislation would do?

SEC’Y GEITHNER: No.

GREGORY: How else should it be looked at?

SEC’Y GEITHNER: Well…

GREGORY: Yes, there are, there are ballooning costs with the existing system, but the remedy still includes tax cuts–tax hikes, does it not?

SEC’Y GEITHNER: No. What the, what the bills moving through Congress do, and these are very important, they expand coverage, they will make care more affordable and they will reduce the rate of growth in healthcare costs. And in that sense they’re going to provide a more fair system, so families are not going to live with the fear that if they lose their job they’re going to lose health care, they’re going to be denied healthcare coverage and they’re going to be able to afford a basic package of care that’s going to make sure they can provide for their families.

GREGORY: Just a couple of minutes left…

Gregory turned the discussion to bonuses to AIG executives.

I’m not even going to begin to get into the terrible calamity that Obamacare will be if it passes. Costs will go up massively. People will pay more and get less. There will be rationing. A lot of people will unnecessarily die early deaths of medical neglect.

And about the taxes Gregory mentioned? Here’s a fun little trivia fact you can know about the 1,990 page health care bill:

According to that group, along with the word “shall” being used 3,425 times in the legislation, the word “tax” was used 87 times, “taxable” used 62 times, “excise tax” used ten times, “taxes” used 15 times, “fee” used 59 times, and “penalty” used 113 times. They also provided a list of 13 specific tax hikes contained within the bill, and even were so kind to include page numbers.

*Violates President Obama’s pledge to avoid tax increases on Americans earning less than $250,000

My point in bringing this to you was simply to point out that if you have ever seen a circus that featured a bunch of clowns wildly driving around and crashing into each other in little clown cars or tricycles, you pretty much understand what it looks like inside the White House.

These people have no clue.

And the new United States of America under Obama, launched with such great fanfare, is – like the Titanic – on a collision course with a giant iceberg.

It would be nice if the Obama administration got its narrative straight. Christine Romer, the chair of Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, says that the stimulus pretty much had all the effect it’s going to have. And while she’s saying that, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is proclaiming that the stimulus was designed with a two-year horizon and that “half that effect is still ahead of us.” Maybe they could get together and cook their story.

It wouldn’t hurt if the White House got its basic facts straight, while they were at it.

WASHINGTON – The White House is promising that new figures being released Friday will be a more accurate showing of progress in President Barack Obama’s economic recovery plan. It aggressively defended an earlier, faulty count that overstated by thousands the jobs created or saved so far.

Ed DeSeve, serving as Obama’s stimulus overseer, said the administration has been working for weeks to correct mistakes in early counts that identified more than 30,000 jobs paid for with stimulus money. He said a new stimulus report Friday should correct many mistakes an Associated Press review found that showed the earlier report overstated thousands of stimulus jobs.

“I think you’ll see a pretty good degree of accuracy,” DeSeve said in an interview.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs downplayed errors in job counts identified by the AP’s review, telling reporters, “We’re talking about 4,000, or a 5,000 error.”

The AP reviewed a sample of federal contracts, not all 9,000 reported to date, and discovered errors in one in six jobs credited to the $787 billion stimulus program — or 5,000 of the 30,000 jobs claimed so far.

Even in its limited review, the AP found job counts that were more than 10 times as high as the actual number of paid positions; jobs credited to the stimulus program that were counted two and sometimes more than four times; and other jobs that were credited to stimulus spending when none was produced.

For example:

• Some recipients of stimulus money used the cash to give existing employees pay raises, but each reported saving dozens of jobs with the money, including one Florida day care that claimed 129 jobs saved.

• A Texas contractor whose business kept 22 employees to handle stimulus contracts saw its job count inflated to 88 because the same workers were counted four times.

• The water department in Palm Beach County, Fla., hired 57 meter readers, customer service representatives and other positions to handle two water projects. But their total job count was incorrectly doubled to 114.

Those errors were included in an early progress report on the stimulus released two weeks ago that featured numerous mistakes, including a Colorado business’ claim that its stimulus contract created more than 4,200 jobs. TeleTech Government Solutions actually hired 4,231 temporary workers for its stimulus project, but most of them worked for five weeks or less and the others no more than five months, company president Mariano Tan said.

The short-term positions should have been reported as 635 full-time, 40-hour-a-week jobs under the government’s method of calculating stimulus work, Tan said.

Now, first of all, stop and contemplate the farce that is going on here. We have lost 3 million jobs since Obama bluffed and pandered his generational theft act through Congress. And they are touting 30,000 jobs as a success? I mean, 30,000 jobs created or saved is a massive failure on its face. And then it turns out that even many of those 30,000 jobs are bogus.

Obama promised his Wreckovery Act would create 3 million new jobs. The fact that he now has to play games to create the illusion that he “saved” or created a minuscule 30 thousand jobs is a screaming testimony to what a failure Obama has truly been.

The White House, according to media reports, is blasting the Associated Press for exposing this new Obama administration fabrication. I guess they’re not a “legitimate news agency,” either.

Economists forecast the nation’s total output grew at an annual rate of 3.3 percent between July and September, after contracting for a record four straight quarters. That growth has been fueled by a huge influx of government cash, including a temporary tax credit for first-time homeowners and a $1.25 trillion Federal Reserve program to keep mortgage rates low.

In other words, the GDP grew, my hind end. Rather, the government spent a ton of money, the result of which was to artificially pump up the economy. It’s the equivalent of borrowing a ton of money you don’t have to buy a car you can’t afford in order to impress your neighbors. Only it’s Obama instead of you, and it’s trillions of dollars rather than thousands.